Former addict starts Dallas nonprofit to help others recover

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Lara Solt/Staff Photographer

Recovered addict Bonnie Coy is shown at Eastfield College in Mesquite, where she is working toward a degree in substance abuse counseling. Coy, who was in and out of prison for about 16 years, hopes the insight she has now that she's sober will inspire others.

At 33, she’s spent much of her life running from her father, from addiction, from police, from the sewer where she slept as a sixth-grader.

“I’m actually afraid to remember everything in my life because the few things that I do remember are just so crazy,” said the Cedar Hill resident, who grew up in Austin.

Bonnie’s still running, but now in a different direction. She’s taking classes at Eastfield College in Mesquite to become a substance abuse counselor and launching MyStrife, a Dallas-based nonprofit that helps recovering addicts.

She hopes her journey to sobriety and success will inspire others with similar struggles.

“Addicts don’t really need a lot of reason to go back and use [drugs],” Bonnie said, “so what MyStrife is kind of doing is making the transition back into society easier.”

Don Crist, executive director of the Dallas 24 Hour Club, said Bonnie’s work has had a great impact. Since its launch in June, MyStrife has helped cover rent and fees for about 25 recovering addicts at the facility, he said.

“People that are new in recovery really don’t focus on the major issue of getting the help that they need to overcome addiction, but they focus on the more simple stuff like ‘How am I going to pay my bills?’” Crist said. “[MyStrife aid] kind of relieves that pressure.”

At age 10, Bonnie’s focus was on keeping her relationship with her 19-year-old baby sitter a secret.

She was hiding Kris because Kris was a girl. Bonnie knew her parents wouldn’t approve.

Her father had always been an angry man, Bonnie remembers. But she had never seen that anger directed at her. Her mother, an Austin ISD administrator known for working 14-hour days, was rarely around, so Bonnie was Daddy’s little girl.

That is, until he caught the sixth-grader with Kris.

Bonnie recounted the day she says she was kicked out. Her father was screaming, shuffling Kris outside. Then he packed Bonnie’s clothes in duffle bags and tossed them out. Bonnie herself was next.

“He picked me up like I was one of those bags and threw me out like I was a piece of luggage,” she said.

Within a week, Bonnie had settled into a sewer near school.

She still remembers “the little cubbyhole” where she slept. She showered in the school gym before class, so none of her teachers suspected a thing, Bonnie said.

When Kris found her at school and invited her to move in, Bonnie didn’t hesitate.

While she does not remember Kris’ last name, several people verified the relationship that introduced Bonnie to sex, weed, wine. Bonnie taught herself to steal, but one day Kris repaid Bonnie’s crime in blood.

Stolen sneakers in her hands, 11-year-old Bonnie sprinted from a shoe store. She jumped a fence to Kris’ apartment thinking she’d gotten away. But when she landed, she saw the gun. The owner of the car that she stood on demanded money for denting his vehicle.

But Kris paid the price. She pushed Bonnie away and then — bang. Bonnie held her as she struggled through her last breaths.

“I think for a long time, I was dead inside,” Bonnie said. “I really couldn’t feel anything.”

“I was raised by prostitutes and drug dealers,” she said. “The people that society condemns the most … helped raise me.”

Weeks after graduating from high school in 1997, the 17-year-old was locked up in the Travis County Jail, serving time for credit card abuse in what would be the first of many stays.

“I just got used to being there,” Bonnie said.

Bonnie’s youth pastor Brenda Sherman saw her transition. Bonnie was no longer the optimistic teen that was among the first to volunteer for church performances. This Bonnie looked half-dead.

But through it all, Sherman said, Bonnie “was hungry to be better.”

“I’ve seen her become strong,” Sherman said. “I’ve seen her do the impossible: realize she had a weakness and face it head on.”

Even after committing to sobriety, Bonnie admits, she was still driven to steal. She’s been arrested twice since 2008: once in Travis County and again for shoplifting at a Dallas Wal-Mart last fall.

But she’s since realized that such behavior risks not only hurting herself but others, as well.

“I want to make up for past pain that I’ve caused, not cause more,” she said.

Bonnie said she wishes she had been more open to receiving help when she was struggling, but she was hesitant to take advice from people who could not personally identify with her situation.

Because of her personal background, she hopes that addicts will be more inclined to accept help from MyStrife.

“Even though I’m not proud of the things that I’ve done, I don’t hide them in hope that somebody will learn from my mistakes,” she said.

Bonnie recently quit her job at an Austin rehabilitation center to settle down with her partner, Veronica Molinar, and Molinar’s four children in Cedar Hill. Now she’s working toward a degree in substance abuse counseling.

After years of running, it seems MyStrife has provided Bonnie a satisfying finish line.

“If years of pain in my life can help prevent somebody from going through that, then it makes it all worth it,” she said. “People always see the trouble that drug addicts cause, but they don’t see the trouble that they went through to lead that life. I’m hoping to change that.”

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